I don’t think I am either prude or dupe. I see rather, in this aversion for certain confessions which no longer allow any doubt as to certain faults, first of all an excess of jealousy—why not?—and then the drawing back before brutal reality which is in me a malady. Actually it is without a doubt a relic of respectable and pious youth, and the evidence that a woman who has been well brought up, who is married, is a mother, and holds a position, has degraded herself to the physical filth of a gallant adventure is intolerable to me. In its way this apprehension was the more illogical and foolish as my comrade’s indiscretion had edified me as regards the flirting and coquetry of which Madam de Bonnivet was capable. Between coquetry, even foolishly light, and precision of the last detail there is an abyss. In conclusion, if ever Jacques came to pronounce to me that cruel phrase: “It is all over. Madam de Bonnivet is my mistress,” I should have to see Camille with that phrase in my memory, and then the reply to her questions would become to me a real penance. To know nothing, on the other hand, was to retain the right to reply to the poor actress without lying to her. This voluntary ignorance did not prevent me from realizing that the whole of Camille’s drama of sentiment was acted on this single point: on the degree of intimacy established between Molan and Queen Anne depended the sad remnant of happiness, the last charity of love which the poor child still enjoyed. So although I tried not to find out anything definite as to the result of the intrigue between Jacques and Madam de Bonnivet, I did nothing but think of it, multiplying the hypotheses for and against the latter’s absolute downfall. Alas! they were almost all for it. How was I to wait for the revelation which put an end to my uncertainty in a startling and entirely unexpected way? It was towards the close of a February afternoon. Camille had missed three set appointments without sending me a word of apology. I had spent several hours, not in my studio, but in a little room adjoining it which I adorned with the title of library. I keep there a number of books which a painter, caring for his art alone, ought not to have. Why is it that a poet and a novelist, even the most plastic, can teach an artist who must live by his eyes and the reproduction of forms? It is true I was not engaged in reading but in dreaming, glasses in hand, before the half-burnt fire. The lamp, which had been brought in by a servant, lit up half the room. I abandoned myself to that nervous languor which resolves itself into, at such an hour, in such a season and such a light, a half unconscious semi-intoxication. Anything accidental in us is removed at such times. We seem to touch the bottom of our fund of sensibility, the nerve itself of the internal organ through which we suffer and enjoy, and the pulp which composes our being.